playing with filters!

One of the samples I'm working on. Silk dyed with walnut, and woad; cotton dyed with the woad. Printed with the collography plate I made. Photographed using my camera-fone; on ordinary setting.

 Same sample; using the 'poster' setting on my camera-fone.

Same again; using the 'solarisation' setting on my camera-fone. Not a fantastic solarisation effect. Needs more contrast for that, really. How easy it is to make these effects; I remember forty years ago, trying to get the solarisation effect, using darkroom techniques. Messing about with the stinking chemicals. Getting my hands dirty; in the dark, trying to make sure every speck of light was blocked out. Using the college darkrooms. Buying developing equipment to set up a darkroom at home; at first under the stairs (a tight squeeze!) then getting it all up into the loft (much easier!). Looking at Man Ray's photos; his solarisation effects.

'Negative' effect on my camera-fone.

The technical skills we used to practice to try and get these effects. All done now, with a click on the mobile phone. Is it too easy nowadays? We're all photographers now, aren't we?
The ubiquity of camera's in our mobile phones has created a generation who records their every move and posts it online.
I keep my old photos in boxes. 
I sometimes wonder; what would Man Ray have done with this technology.?What would Bill Brandt have done? How would Lee Miller have used a camera-fone when she was photographing events of WW2, and the liberation of the camps? Well; they would've been able to travel light/er, wouldn't they?
But what effect would this technology have had upon their art? They would have used it, definitely. Artists use whatever technology is there. And I'm using some of the oldest, most basic technology in the world; dyeing with plants, needles and threads. Ancient technology. Going back millennia. I like that.

linder @ the Hepworth

This exhibition ends this weekend at The Hepworth. I've been down twice to see it.

 'Linder (b 1954, Liverpool, UK) has been working with the principles of collage for over 3 decades: from her 2D work on the late 1970's iconic Buzzcocks posters and record sleeves, to more recent collages presented in light boxes.'

Being of that particular age, and 'demographic'! I was interested to discover Linder's work again, after seeing her record covers from the 1970's. At first I didn't make the connection, as these collages on show at the Hepworth have seemingly very little in common with those punk, D-I-Y collages. Her current work is big, glossy, full technicolour, presented in light-boxes. They look more like expensive perfume ads than punk collages. 
Lots of ballerinas, and natural forms such as shells, and animals. Some of them look at bit randomly composed. Others have an internal structure to them; the curves and forms of the nature objects, echo and emphasise the human forms.
I actually liked the old-fashioned photos of the dancers; going into the darkened room where these light-boxes were on display was like going back into the imagery of the 1950's, with added 21st Century technology!